Clement Moore’s version of Santa’s reindeer team was not the only one. Children’s author L. Frank Baum, known for his Oz series, offered a competing version: A team of ten (!) named Flossie and Glossie, Racer and Pacer, Reckless and Speckless, Fearless and Peerless, and Ready and Steady. The names used a rhyming, alliterative style …
In my original plans for this post I wanted to generate some names for new members of Santa’s flying reindeer team, but instead I went down a rabbit hole of Christmas canon. For example, much of our (meaning American) ideas about Santa Claus came from poet Clement Moore’s work “A Visit from St. Nicholas” which …
It Rhymes With Takei by George Takei and Harmony Becker (artist) Adapted by Steven Scott and Justin Eisinger Penquin Random House, 2025 [ #1 Year of the Snake: A book published in any of the Chinese Years of the Snake: 2025, 2013, 2001, 1989, etc. ] Since I didn’t get into my Howdy, stranger (a …
Cavaransies have existed for thousands of years along trading routes in India, the Middle East, and North Africa. They provided travelers a place to eat, rest, and restock their supplies. Usually they were set at intervals along the road, the spacing calculated by the time spent in a typical day’s travel. Many of them were …
Since reading The Lost Gospel I became of a mind to create some mythical Biblical peoples. Like, you know, the Sodomites, who famously gave their name to the art of buggery. Everyone who took a bible class, even as a small child, knows that story: evil Sodom and Gomorrah are to be destroyed by God …
In the previous two posts of this series I’ve concentrated on the lighthearted (back then) wink-wink smirk-smirk types of covers that sold “adult” — or those that were marketed as adult, even if they were rather tame — SFF novels. Though these might be considered sexist today, there was a humor to them, an idea …
How did a sweet, delectable Polish doughnut called paczki, whom most people have never heard of, come to be sold in supermarkets in the weeks before Mardi Gras? Paczkis (pronounced Poon-chshee) are a traditional Polish treat made to use up all the extra flour, sugar, and eggs in the weeks before Lent, as a last …
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